Robert - ship volunteer

Posted by bex — 7 March 2007 at 11:41am - Comments

Part of the Trident: we don't buy it tour blog

A couple of days ago, I promised to post the stories of some of the ship's crew (they're the ones who work around the clock to keep ship life ticking over - in between being arrested, racing to London in record time, running ship open days and setting up musical events and press conferences). This morning, Robert tells his story - Rebecca.

Robert - ship volunteer
Hungary


Ship volunteer RobertMy day on the Arctic Sunrise starts at four in the morning. I get up before everybody so I can write - for my Hungarian blog, my office and my PhD in Mongolian Linguistics. At 7.30 I begin life as a ship volunteer with mopping, cleaning, paint chipping and helping where I am needed.

In the evening, I go back to work, this time learning English. In my school in Hungary, we were never taught English. The first time I really spoke it was when I joined the ship one month ago. I am learning, but it takes time! At least my phrase book amuses the crew – it does not say how to buy bread but it has lots of phrases like “your eyes are like pillows”.

I love taking part in non-violent direct actions (once I spent two weeks at a resistance camp on the Zengo in minus 20 degrees Celsius), so the blockade at Faslane was really exciting for me. I also love the physical work of the ship after spending so much time in an office. Before the ship, I worked as a Greenpeace area networker in Eastern Europe. Before that, I took a masters in Tibetan language and culture and before that, I have been a greengrocer, bookseller, smuggler, bar tender, painter decorator, proofreader, translator, journalist, author, poet, university tutor, reiki practitioner and rock climber.

The future? I would like to keep working for the protection of nature, travel a lot, write books about my journeys, find my place in the Cosmos and, of course, keep shipping and become a good deckhand! And one day I would like to be able to say “your eyes are like pillows” in perfect English...

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